By Our Reporter
Shillong: The State Government has brushed aside the proscribed HNLC’s recent talks offer saying that the rebel outfit has to first lay down arms and shun the path of violence.
“The outfit has not intimated to us officially its desire to hold talks with the government. We only saw it in newspapers,” Home Minister HDR Lyngdoh told reporters here on Tuesday.
Stating that doors are always open for talks, Lyngdoh said, “Holding talks with the HNLC on the sovereignty issue is out of question”.
It may be mentioned that on August 14, Cheristerfield Thangkhiew, general secretary of the militant group, had renewed its offer to the government for talks while sticking to the same demands as were expressed in the letter sent to the Central government in 2004.
The HNLC, which has been staging hit-and-run operations from its hideouts in Bangladesh for over two decades, has been demanding a “sovereign Hynniewtrep homeland” in the eastern part of Meghalaya.
In fact, the outfit had sent a letter to the Union government expressing its willingness to hold talks provided the government agreed to lift the ban imposed upon it.
Govt giving preferential treatment to ANVC-B: GNLA: Meanwhile, accusing the authorities of giving preferential treatment to ANVC-B, the GNLA urged the Government to initiate impartial handling of all the militant outfits, our Tura correspondent adds.
West Khasi Hills Area Commander of GNLA, Tosol T Sangma said that the ANVC-B cadres too should be hunted down in the way GNLA members are being targeted by the Government.